Friday, April 17, 2015
House Votes To Repeal Estate Tax, Preserve Step-Up In Basis At Death
Following up on Monday's post, the House voted 240-179 yesterday to repeal the estate tax and preserve step-up in basis at death:
- Bloomberg, Parties Clash Over Wealth as House Votes to Kill Estate Tax
- Daily Caller, Killing The Death Tax Is Good Economics
- Forbes, House Votes 240-179 To Repeal Estate Tax
- Fortune, House Republicans Just Voted to Give the Very Wealthy a Tax Break
- National Review op-ed, Kill the Death Tax for Good, by Stephen Moore
- New York Times, House Votes to Repeal Estate Tax
- USA Today editorial, Repealing Estate Tax Would Reward 0.2%
- USA Today op-ed, Time for the Estate Tax to Die; 100 Years Later, the Death Tax Has Cost Americans More Than $1 Trillion, by Sen. John Thune & Rep. Bill Flores
- USA Today op-ed, Ben & Jerry: We Don't Need This Stupid Tax Cut, by Ben Cohen & Jerry Greenfield
- Wall Street Journal, House Passes Bill to Repeal Estate Tax
- Washington Post, Fact Check: Despite Rhetoric, Fewer Than 1 Percent of Estates Pay Federal Estate Tax
- Washington Post op-ed, Republicans Push for a Permanent Aristocracy, by Dana Milbak
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/04/house-votes-to-repeal-estate-tax.html
Comments
"Jim, well, then git rid of the basis step up if you do away with the estate tax!"
I'm good with this. I suspect the step up in basis costs the Treasury more than the estate tax brings in.
Posted by: Dale Spradling | Apr 21, 2015 6:30:23 AM
Why is the family farmer the whipping boy for the estate tax repealers? Any time the estate tax is brought up we are browbeaten with the plight of the family farmer. Seems to me that if we cared so much about the farmers, outside of subsidizing their crop growing/not-growing, we could tailor legislation to exempt certain classified acreage from the estate tax while keeping the estate tax in place. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater just because some mythical family might lose some acreage?
Posted by: Daniel | Apr 21, 2015 5:27:20 AM
Jim, well, then git rid of the basis step up if you do away with the estate tax! Sounds like this House bill would be a giant give away to farmers if you ask me. The next generation of "family farmers" (if that's even a big thing anymore) will find it all too easy to sell their inherited land without any tax consequences. I actually think the federal estate tax isn't actually as onerous as people say it is.
Posted by: HTA | Apr 20, 2015 3:00:16 PM
This isn't only about "rich people." It's about family farmers who have a lot of paper wealth in land--farmland prices are sky high right now--but no actual money in the bank.
Posted by: Jim | Apr 17, 2015 10:13:51 AM
What is objectionable is the lifetime scrutiny of every gift and the final balance sheet at death by the central government. We should be free to give as we please without some final accounting to the State. We are not serfs. The property is or should be ours. Who supports the gift tax besides the class warriors obviously and predictably under the headlines above? Insurance companies who sell funding opportunities for the liabilities created, and their shareholders.
Posted by: jamesb.bkk | Apr 17, 2015 9:54:01 AM
Back in the late 1990s, the Tax Section's quarterly journal ran an article on a comparative study of death tax regimes across the developed countries. It found that the U.S. death tax system was by a wide margin the most onerous. It also quoted the data points that the federal estate tax brought in less than 1% of gross federal revenue, and something like 65% of its revenues were consumed in direct administration and enforcement costs. In other words, it never left the IRS building, so to speak. I can't lay hands on that article now, but I'd be fascinated to see current data on gross-revenue-versus-enforcement/administration figures.
Posted by: Countrylawywer | Apr 17, 2015 9:40:51 AM
Pump the brakes Dale. Can we wait for my family to pass before taking such measures? :)
Posted by: Daniel | Apr 21, 2015 10:50:31 AM